Capcom has revealed that players will get better feedback for their big attacks hitting monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds with better hitstops than what we got to saw in the title’s open beta tests. In an interview with Mp1st, producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and director Yuya Tokuda revealed that hitstop effects won’t be an issue in the full release of Monster Hunter Wilds when it comes out on February 28.
For context, weapon hitstops refers to the effect in Monster Hunter games where using a particularly hard-hitting attack, like a Great Sword’s True Charged Slash for instance, would provide visceral feedback to the player by having the attack animation lag slightly on hit. This had the effect of letting players understand that they were hitting a monster’s weak spot, while also letting them feel good about the power of their weapon.
Tokuda and Tsujimoto revealed that a decision was made to lower the amount of weapon hitstop for Monster Hunter Wilds because it was seen as interfering with a player’s gaming experience. However, the duo did say that what we saw in the beta was the hitstop effect having been lowered too much, and that adjustments have been made to bring it back up to a level where players will still feel powerful with their chosen weapons without interfering with the overall hunting experience.
“So when we released Monster Hunter World, there were many comments and requests from the audience that hitstop was too strong and it interfered with their gaming experience,” said Tsujimoto and Tokuda. “When we had the open-beta test for Monster Hunter Wilds, because we have such seamless gameplay, we made it intentionally just a little bit lighter so that it wouldn’t interfere with the gaming experience, and there were some elements that didn’t make it into the OBT, so it was released as is.”
“It ended up feeling a little bit lighter than what was intended, but after releasing the OBT, we heard that everybody wanted to have a harder hit stop, and that was honestly something we were happy to hear that people were looking into the actual hitting, the feeling of the weapons hitting the monster,” they continued. “[The studio] prioritized that, so, in the final product version, we will have hit stops and additional sound effects that make it feel like you are hitting the actual monsters. It will be closer to what people are looking forward to.”
While the answer indicates that we won’t be seeing hitstops reach quite the same level as Monster Hunter World or Monster Hunter Rise, players should be happier with hitstop levels in the main game itself.
Back in December, Capcom had also revealed that it wasn’t quite done making smaller changes to Monster Hunter Wilds. The studio had particularly singled out Switch Axe and Lance, which would be getting “substantial changes” in the main game.
Monster Hunter Wilds is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S at the end of the month. PC players can check out the benchmark tool to see if their hardware is up to running the game, and in the meantime, players on all platforms can check out the second open beta test, slated to start on February 13, and being available until February 17. An additional 24 hours was added to the test period because of PlayStation Network outages this last week.
